Pas de deux – Nabokov’s blues and Dis Manibus – carved in stone research and artists’ book projects

Hakemuksen tiivistelmä

In collaboration with researchers in the USA and Finland in the fields of history, literature and entomology I will create complex multidisciplinary artists’ book projects. Collaborators are Tampere university, Finland, Harvard University’s Entomology Department, Wellesley college, special collections in MA., USA and the Berg collection of the New York Public Library. Firstly, I am interested in the movements of the writer Vladimir Nabokov as an emigrant in relation to his studies of butterfly taxonomy and their evolutionary migration, proven by geneticists in 2011, as a symbol of transformation and fragility. Secondly, based on existing stone inscriptions found in Rome, 200 BCE–200 CE, I am re-creating the life and paths of an existed family in a book form. Acknowledging their servants (slaves) mentioned, freed and buried, Rome, with it's streets and etymological street name explanations, still existing visible remains of rooms and walls of that time. The outcome will be showcased in a traveling exhibition from Stanford university via Boston atheneum to Klingspor museum in Frankfurt, artbook Berlin, Germany and Helsinki. Several other artists' books are in preparation. A comprehensive documentation shall be presented in a catalogue.